Tuesday, May 20, 2008

A mini-debate in the comments centered around whether or not Cincy should retire more numbers and how those players (and their accompanying numbers) should be selected. A couple people said, essentially, take out the subjective aspect -- make it be a requirement that the player had won a national player of the year award.

I say ... hmm, that is basing it completely on something subjective -- the selection of the national player of the year is certainly subjective. Now, you kind of take it out of the universities hands, so there will be no controversy there, but this method would not exactly take the subjectivity out of the process.

Furthermore, who's to say that's a good 'method' anyway. Aren't three years as a top ten player better than one year as the best player and two or three relatively insignificant ones. I don't know for sure, but I'd certainly say so.

Unless you create some sort of detailed, uber-stat, there is always going to be subjectivity in something like this (and you could even argue it'd still exist, even if you did that). Personally, I'd put together a committee of past players, writers, etc. to have some type of vote to determine the numbers that would be retired. Heck, have some type of internet vote for the fans. Nobody knows a team's players like its fans, collectively.